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::INSIGHT::

What we see, we have already "read" as our visual cortex filters our perceptions down through the doors of our experiences. What we read is immediately transposed perceptually to some kind of image that is compatible with our imagination. Here you will find much to read, and lots to see.

When artist Mettla Maguire was commissioned by the mayor to create a piece of art to decorate the bare brick wall of the town hall, she knew exactly what she wanted. She used two different kinds of metal for the giant sunflower, and mounted it on the side of the town hall with a backing of blue metal roofing.

Soon, however, she was embarrassed, and eventually she was absolutely mortified. Instead of the petals turning yellow-orange as she had expected, the heart of the sunflower rusted, while the petals showed signs of turning black like sunflower seeds.

One night, thinking of the failure of her pièce de résistance, she drove to the town hall, making sure no one was around. She got out of her car carefully, quietly, and walked up to her sculpture on tiptoe. She grabbed one of the "petals" on the left of the flower and pulled on it. Suddenly, a loud alarm rang right in her ear and, as she stood there, frozen in shock, a police car drove up.

Now Mettla found herself on the other side of the town hall, in one of the two small jail cells, awaiting charges of vandalism, public mischief and assaulting a police officer. It was the latter charge that landed her in jail, but she'd had to fight back. "It's wrong!" she screamed as Constable Casey told her she would be facing vandalism charges. "It's so wrong! It's all wrong!" she repeated as she pushed him away from her.

"You're right, lady," said the newly-hired constable. "It's wrong to push a police officer head first into a rusty old windmill. I don't know why they had it rigged with an alarm, but that's not my problem."

Damndest thing you could imagine,
your last visceral memory being
that flash,
that concussive sledge hammer,
with the lingering taste
of figs and falafel
on your torn lips,
hearing staccato rifle fire
between the Farsi beats,
the amplified calls
to prayer pounding through
the terrible heat,
seeing the blood sun setting
majestically behind a minaret,
bleeding day into the murk of the Tigris,
a quick glimpse of
two dogs chasing a feral cat,
two boys playing soccer,
two crows dueling over something dead,
the pungent smell of sewer nearby,
goat frying, gun oil,
some forgotten chocolate—
all passing in review on fast forward
as you rise effortlessly
from the operating table,
from ripped up heart shards barely beating,
between the big silver clamps
holding your chest open, up and up to
above the doctors,
above your own body, just this
whiffed smear of ambient light
listening
to the higher self saying
to the soul,
“Come home now, they are all waiting.”

One day it's the clouds,
one day the mountains.
One day the latest bloom
of roses - the pure monochromes,
the dazzling hybrids - inspiration
for the cathedral's round windows.
Every now and then
there's the splendor
of thought: the singular
idea and its brilliant retinue -
words, cadence, point of view,
little gold arrows flitting
between the lines.
And too the splendor
of no thought at all:
hands lying calmly
in the lap, or swinging
a six iron with effortless
tempo. More often than not
splendor is the star we orbit
without a second thought,
especially as it arrives
and departs. One day
it's the blue glassy bay,
one day the night
and its array of jewels,
visible and invisible.
Sometimes it's the warm clarity
of a face that finds your face
and doesn't turn away.
Sometimes a kindness, unexpected,
that will radiate farther
than you might imagine.
One day it's the entire day
itself, each hour foregoing
its number and name,
its cumbersome clothes, a day
that says come as you are,
large enough for fear and doubt,
with room to spare: the most secret
wish, the deepest, the darkest,
turned inside out.

Here is the road: the light
comes and goes then returns again.
Be gentle with your fellow travelers
as they move through the world of stone and stars
whirling with you yet every one alone.
The road waits.
Do not ask questions but when it invites you
to dance at daybreak, say yes.
Each step is the journey; a single note the song.

The mouth of the river may be beautiful.
It doesn't remember the womb of its beginning.
It doesn't look back to where it's been
or wonder who ahead of it polished the rough stones.

It is following the way
in its fullness,
now like satin,
now cresting,
waters meeting, kindred
to travel gathered together,
all knowing it flows
one way, shining or in shadows.
And me, the animal
I ride wants to drive forward,
its longing not always my own,
overrunning its banks and bounds,
edgeless, pilling along the way

The trio of turkey vultures
continued to circle. Again, and again.
Directly over me.
For an intimidatingly long time.
I didn’t just hear the diaphanous sound
of their broad wingspans flapping.
I actually felt the slight movement
in the air that the flapping generated
on this very windless day.

They flew low.

Gazing straight up to the beautiful,
full spread of feathers and talons,
I realized that I was viewing the same,
very last image, as has many a hapless rodent.

In the dream I stretched out almost motionless,
the words I tried to speak caught in my throat
and nearly choking me. The place was filled with faces,
like a giant hall,* a kind of night club
with the sound of distant music ringing in my ears.
Someone to the right of me, another sleeping figure,
said its name was Stille or die Stille,
which was clear enough in German
but I couldn’t find the proper English* word for it.
Even more puzzling, I was aware,
if vaguely, that it was taking place in Russia,
and that the strangers with us were
from the newly minted* class of Russian billionaires.
I tried to point it out to those around me,
that this Russia was far different
from the one we once imagined. I was overcome
with grief and longing – emotions in my dreams,
rarely in waking -- and alarmed at the water
that had started rising in the hall.
I had long loved the word cockeyed and mouthed
it as a sure* expression of my thoughts.
It came back in a flow of rhyme*
I spewed forth for the other sleepers.
Was this hall a mausoleum and the sleepers
all of those I knew in life,
now safely stacked away, forever?
I stepped down from my perch and tried
to swim among the beds and tables, following
the voices of the rich that led me
to an outer courtyard. Even here the word tsunami
rattled in my ears, my fingers groping
for a ladder that was out of reach.
Was it the inland sea,* I wondered,
a lake with putrid birds, a bog, a fen, a mash of
crimson bodies, more than I could count?
My shoes had little lights attached,*
enough to lead me down a narrow causeway,
the end of which was darkness
more dense than death. Time is abolished
was the line that came at me – the
world is o’er. I thought if I could start to sing,
the words would carry me across, but what?
A song about a king, a bird, a fallen tree,
all too romantic. The pressure of the
ooze under my feet that pulls me down,
that sends an ache up through my legs,*
makes me wonder that my heart can
still keep beating. I would rather sleep
or crawl back to the hall,
the place from which I came. But where?
in which direction? with what name to name it?
Stille or die Stille, if they ever found me here,
would anybody understand me?*
These were what I feared: the hangman,
the exploding bombs, the curtains blocking sight,
the holy fools, the drifters, the march of time,
the rosary of skulls, the wings of love,
the broken blossoms, the children’s games,
the hostile wind, the duendicitos. For
me the oldest memories are those of being lost:
a hall of celebrating giants,
a cellar with a furnace burning bright,
a point where memory and dream are one. I
crawl my way toward waking, still bereft.

With every new invention*
what was long hidden launches into space.
Spectacular, the groundlings cry,
the baby plutocrats who live this side of Russia.
There are so many here,
so little time to push your way
between them, trembling,*
where the owners of your lives,
intrepid, brutal, face off for a final round.
The sound of water* was the title
but the words were not the same.*
In tune with which a long procession follows,
baring their teeth like rows of diamonds,
glittery like glass or little poniards.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,
the banner reads,
back to the dawn of childhood dreams.
Up stands the captain, head in hands,
the thought renewed in dullness,
triggering a voiceless rage.*
Command, condemn, control.
The age* of oligarchs begins anew.
From every corner of the heimat those who buy their
circumstances sally forth.
All is forgiven, all is not forgiven.
The word is divagations, is it not?

once the laces
are gone, there is really
no other way to
pull yourself
together, make
the most of it, put
on a semblance
of sanity. it takes
several layers
of discretion to
unwind, and we
are used to
being secured
by knots
of loneliness
.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

We were childhood sweet hearts.
(I was a one girl-man back then - I guess
the starlight must have dimmed my eyes a tad.)
We saw each other every day:
one evening she would ride down to me,
the next I'd cycle up to her. And that
was really something - no mistake!

Long time it took to turn us into lovers,
we never met but one of us was knackered!
One time I came a cropper way up there.
Well, on that busy roundabout outside The Plough.
The slipstream from a distant comet, took my wheel
and I was rolling in the stardust, thought I'd died.
The landlord came and fixed me up, he did,
but that was it, I didn't feel like any "How's your Father"
that night. Which discombobulated her. She had a strength
I never had, and that's a fact. Don't know
where it came from, but it had to be believed.
Some nights she'd leave me feeling like a rag doll
dragged up from a restless sea and left to dry.

That was the night of nights though, that night
of the famous puncture. Just getting on my bike I was,
to cycle home, I noticed that the tyre was flat.
I fixed it, 'course I did, but by that time
it was too late to make it home - or so she said.
We slept together that night. First time ever.
Kept it to ourselves - well, bet yer bottom!
Then in the early hours we both woke up -
did everything together by that time. Know what?
She only sticks her finger out into the night...
and when she draws it back it was aglow.
Starlight shining from it like it was a candle in the night.
Romantic, that was. Well, I thought so, at the time.

It couldn't last of course. If only 'cause we rode
those bikes into the ground - well, into the stratosphere,
I s'pose. They don't make bikes like those these days!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Riding my bicycle up a some big long hill
Goin' up's a lotta work
but to me it's a thrill
Pushin' on the pedals,
and I'm panting like a dog
It's worth it when I get there
'cause it leads to my girl.
Come ride with me baby,
let's us give it a whirl.

Sundays with my baby on my new tandem bike.
She's holdin' on behind me,
yeah you know that's what I like
Zoomin' down by lakeside,
through some morning fog
Speedin' 'round the corners
with the wind in our hair.
Best thing about her is,
she likes to ride bare.

The solar demigods smiled as
the stifling, sultry, sweat-smeared
king of dog days arrived;
when triple digits soared arrogantly,
when house cats and dogs went mad,
when the ocean frothed like something rabid,
when fruit jars burst apart and juice soured,
when pet birds lie in a stupor
in the bottom of their brass cages,
when red rashes rose like hordes of chiggers,
devouring flesh from ankles to ear lobes, when
thirst could not be slacked, only teased, when
migraines inhabited cortical caverns, when
colons were agitated into their spin cycle, when
strong women broke out in fevers and vapors,
when kind men used bestial growling as
their only means of communication, when
children at play became suddenly hysterical,
when birds flew blindly into windows and walls,
when house flies procreated in your pudding,
when foxes appeared in packs from the shadows,
when even great eagles flew hungry pushed
ever higher by voracious thermals;

and that night when it cooled down to a hundred,
when Sirius blazed on the crown of Canus Major,
sleep became illusive, a coy specter hiding
in the steamy folds of sweltering sheets, forcing
people to rise and prowl their premises, shaking
with alacrity, barely comprehending that sleep
was not their ally, for it might mask something evil
in the broom closet, underneath the stairs,
in the tool shed, the guest room, the basement,
or even an undiscovered heat demon
existing in the ethereal aura of who
they once believed they were; something
blood red, coiled, and anxious to bolt.

Mars and Vulcan,
rough boys playing rough games,
riding their bikes,
shrieking, bells clanging and brakes screeching,
up and own the long corridors of Jupiter's
workshops for the manufacture
of thunder and lightning.

Jupiter appeared,
bleary-eyed and hung over
after a long night with one of his many conquests.

By Jove, he thundered,
ear-splitting uproar of unruly youth
all but deafening him.

Send for Juno, my wife,
the companion of my years,
protector of my hearth,
warlike and fearless,
her word will end your games.

Juno, in garments of ire,
her face black with anger,
stood before Jupiter.

My lord, brother and husband,
the revels of the night
have addled your adulterer's brain.

Your tale is told as by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

Now hold your tongue,
allow brave youth its edifying games
and you return now whence you came.
A wanton's couch is waiting
your return.

Chastened, ill-favoured, sick at heart,
Jupiter found his way to Sirius.
Move over Sir, he said,
Tonight it's me who's in the doghouse.

Allow me these fragments
They are my poem
My poem is pieces
Here and there
Chips off the old blockhead
One wall cracks apart
Not from despair but rain
Plaster falling on the floor
Reminds me of a poem
I write whenever I get
Time to sit down.

*

Others balance by
Kneeling to pray
I allow them their poem
This is mine
A patchwork poem
Pathwork
Dream flesh sewn to
Flesh of wounds whose edges
Cut against the mouth
Don’t turn away.
My blood mixes with plaster
Sealing the poem together.

*

One letter, one word
One line at a time
Held in the page
When I sew pieces together
They remain fragments.

Typewriter strikes paper
Needle thru cloth
Allow it.
My grandmother was a seamstress
My grandfather a tailor
My father sat before his table
Sewing jokes into the air
Something like satori
To think of it
Splinters my brain.
No judgment
Let me be with my pieces
Spread upon my table

*

A puzzle no matter
How I move it
Never solves itself.

*

Time unbends me
My fragments make no difference
They are children
Laughing against knowledge
Shadows grow large in the field
My window watches
Sunset swallow song
Stars arise
Page after page of my book
Writes thru time
Lights sewn together
My poem is bits and splinters
Darkness allows me.

*

Into dawn
The door opens.
Quail in pairs
Wobble out for seed
Scattered like stars
In random swirls around the green
Grace of bamboo
Moving supple in the wind.

*

Question my poem
For words to describe it
The page is in pieces
Praises, sorrows, joys
Corny sincere
Spirals of aura dust
Fragments and whispers
Thumb book of holy hints
All are my poem
And they bend to a moment
Ready for distraction

For those of you who have forgotten
that I have a castle sitting
just outside the garden hedge,
here is a reminder.
All that separates me
from the castle grounds is a hedge
which consists of rose bushes, and a dry moat.
My hands and bare arms are scratched and torn,
bleeding and punctured by the pricks
of a thousand thorns.
This is the time of year when I prune my roses
for a second and third flush;.
Being unable to work while wearing gauntlets,
I must suffer the consequences.

Young men, not knowing what to remember,
Come to this hiding place of the moons and years,
To this Old Man. Old Man, they say, where should we go?
Where did you find what you remember?
Was it perched in a tree?
Did it hover deep in the white water?
Was it covered over
With dead stalks in the grass?
Will we taste it
If our mouths have long lain empty?
Will we feel it between our eyes if we face the wind
All night, and turn the color of earth?
If we lie down in the rain, can we remember sunlight?

He answers, I have become the best and worst I dreamed.
When I move my feet, the ground moves under them.
When I lie down, I fit the earth too well.
Stones long underwater will burst in the fire, but stones
Long in the sun and under the dry night
Will ring when you strike them. Or break in two.
There were always many places to beg for answers:
Now the places themselves have come in close to be told.
I have called even my voice in close to whisper with it:
Every secret is as near as your fingers.
If your heart stutters with pain and hope,
Bend forward over it like a man at a small campfire.

sunday arrives on
tiptoes, attempting
to slip past
several degrees
warmer than the
last time we
checked. a
routine knee
jerk reflex test
indicated that all
was fine, and
sunday always
walks in on tiptoes
.

The oldest mask we are aware of
was made of stone in the pre-ceramic
neolithic era.

I remember the freedom
an actor feels while wearing a mask.
My group in college performed a
commedia del’arte play, with me
playing Il Dottore struggling to revive
a stricken Arlecchino.

They say El Santo never removed
his mask, even after retirement,
being reluctant to relinquish
his hero status; only showing his
face briefly in public when he was
very old, and was buried wearing
his silver mask.

Native American and Inuit ceremonial
and ritual masks always frightened me
as a child, and every kind of mask,
from every corner of the globe
was a revered ancestor to clowns,
and their painted faces--even today
many of us still fear a clown.

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